Reformer of the week – Victoria Nuland
Victoria Nuland, the former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, said in a Feb. 21 interview with German broadcaster Deutsche Welle that Ukraine needs an independent anti-corruption court to become a civilized country and disassociate itself from corrupt kleptocracies like Russia.
Nuland encapsulated the idea that, to avoid sliding back into Russian-style corrupt authoritarianism, Ukraine needs to radically cleanse its law enforcement system.
The Verkhovna Rada on March 1 passed the first reading of President Petro Poroshenko’s bill to create an anti-corruption court in the country. Poroshenko submitted the bill in December after blocking the idea for more than a year.
However, critics have argued that Poroshenko’s legislation is inadequate. In December and January Ukrainian anti-corruption groups, the IMF, the World Bank, the European Union and the European Commission for Democracy through Law, better known as the Venice Commission, criticized Poroshenko’s bill and urged him to amend it.
They say that Poroshenko’s legislation does not guarantee the selection of independent anti-corruption judges.
Poroshenko refused to amend the bill ahead of its first reading, and his critics argue that he is unlikely to do so during its second and final reading.
Ukrainian pro-government media and bloggers, including Karl Volokh, Viktor Ukolov and Taras Chornovil, spread fake news that the IMF and the World Bank had caved in to Poroshenko’s version of the anti-graft court bill and accepted it. The fake was uncovered on Jan. 31 by the Yevropeiska Pravda newspaper, which cited IMF and World Bank representatives as denying the claim.
Anti-reformer of the week – Valery Lashevych
Valery Lashevych, a judge of the Kyiv Court of Appeals, on Feb. 26 upheld a decision to release Odesa Mayor Hennady Trukhanov without bail in a corruption case.
Lawmaker Dmytro Holubov of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc vouched for Trukhanov. Holubov, who denies the accusations, has been charged by United States authorities with cybercrimes, including credit-card fraud, and has been wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
Lashevych has been accused of having ties to President Petro Poroshenko’s gray cardinal and lawmaker Oleksandr Hranovsky, who denies them.
In March, Lashevych was chosen to consider an appeal against the arrest of then State Fiscal Service Chief Roman Nasirov, a loyalist of Poroshenko. In April Lashevych ruled to return Nasirov’s passports and other documents, which had previously been seized to prevent him from fleeing.
Lashevych in March also reduced the bail for Ruslan Zhurilo, a suspect in a corruption case investigated by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine. He has also ruled against political opponents of Poroshenko.
Lashevych was also investigated in a case against ex-Kyiv Appeals Court Chief Anton Chernushenko, who fled in 2015 after being charged with interfering with the automatic system for allocating cases to judges.
In 2016 Lashevych released ex-riot police officer Oleksandr Belov, who had been charged with murdering EuroMaidan protesters. As a result, Belov fled.
On Feb. 15, Judge Maksym Vyshnyak of Kyiv’s Solomyansky Court also released Trukhanov without bail. Meanwhile, Judge Dmytro Kratko of the Solomyansky Court on Feb. 27 refused to suspend Trukhanov as mayor of Odesa.
Vitaly Ustymenko, a member of the AutoMaidan civil-society group from Odesa, was assaulted by pro-Trukhanov thugs, or titushki, at a court hearing on Trukhanov on Feb. 15.
Trukhanov is accused of embezzlement worth Hr 100 million.
In November, documentary evidence emerged that Trukhanov is a Russian citizen, according to the database on the site of Russia’s Federal Tax Service. The database shows his name, date of birth, Russian passport number and Russian individual tax number. Trukhanov denied having a Russian passport.
Lawmakers Yegor Firsov and Volodymyr Aryev previously published what they said were documents from Russia’s Federal Migration Service, according to which Trukhanov has two Russian passports: one issued in Moscow Oblast and another in the Republic of Dagestan.
Trukhanov has also been accused of organizing and financing pro-Russian separatists in Odesa in 2014 – an accusation that he denies. Documents published by Slidstvo.info show that Trukhanov owns a hidden network of offshore firms that control companies that have received city contracts.
Trukhanov, as well as his associates and Odesa businessmen Alexander Angert and Vladimir Galanternik, have been accused of spearheading corruption in Odesa. According to an Italian police dossier, Trukhanov and Angert were members of a mafia gang in the 1990s.
Trukhanov, Angert and Galanternik deny accusations of wrongdoing.
